CBS Has No Idea What Sex Is
Like most Americans, when I heard reports that philandering South Carolina Governor governor Mark Sanford confessed to crossing the line, but not "the sex line" with many women, I assumed he meant the 70th Parallel North, aka The Sex Line—meaning he went many places with many women, but didn't take any of them to Victoria Island in Canada. It's a weird thing to mention, but, whatever, he seems like a weird guy.
CBS News, however, thought Sanford was referring to, you know, doing it. The problem is, no one ever sat CBS News down and explained to them that when two people love each other very much, they take off all their clothes and jump up and down on a bed with the doors closed. Later on, they call a stork together, and nine months later a baby arrives. That's called sex. Birds do it. Bees do it. People do it. Everyone, it seems, does it. Except for CBS News (via Gawker):
We talk about sex. A lot.
But all too often we don't know exactly what we're talking about. What's considered getting to third base these days anyway?
And when it comes to philandering politicians, the line on what's considered sex is especially fuzzy.
President Bill Clinton said oral sex wasn't sex. South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford says in his latest revelation that he "crossed lines" with women other than his wife and Argentine mistress, but "didn't cross the sex line." He wouldn't say what that meant.
If those distinctions have you confused, you aren't alone. Neither are Clinton and Sanford. Americans just aren't explicit when they talk about having "had sex."
Poor CBS News. They just want some politicians to talk dirty to them. I mean, it's pretty obvious what sex is. It's stock footage of shooting geysers and trains going into tunnels. Also, it's when people are kissing on or near a bed, and then the camera pans over to the window. And sometimes, it's this:
That's sex. You would think that a decades-strong national news organization would know that by now. But apparently, everything CBS News learned about sex, they learned from Meat Loaf: